Movie Reviews

Hindi Medium – A chapter out of the common Indian struggle

Movie Review by Vineetha Saikumar (Rocheston Certified Movie Critic)

Irrfan Khan is a deal breaker when it comes to good movies in any language. Saket Chaudhary directed Hindi Medium, starring Irrfan Khan and Saba Qamar, is a complete social satire that has the perfect situational comedy fixed at the right plots in the screenplay.

Language is quite a huge factor that divides people into different classes in our society. English speaking group will be considered elite, no matter how ill-mannered, but the Hindi-speaking group will always remain uncivilized, no matter how wealthy and courteous. The film deals with exactly that and how a young hindi-speaking couple want their daughter enrolled in an English-medium school.

Raj (Irrfan Khan) is a salesman at a clothing store selling occasion wear to highly fashionable attires straight out of Bollywood. They might not be from the same background, but the mutual adoration that Raj and his wife Mita (Saba Qamar) have for each other fills your hearts because of their perfect and happy marriage with a polite daughter Piya. While Raj wants to stay back at his ancestral home in Chandni Chowk in East Delhi, Mita wants to move out and insists on admitting their daughter to the best English speaking school in Vasant Vihar in South Delhi. From being a rich couple to acting as the poor to get their daughter into school, Raj, Mita and Piya try to live the life of a poor person in India with absolutely no knowledge about it. Shyam Prakash (Deepak Dobriyal) is their helpful neighbour who does everything that screams “art of being poor”, as they live in the same slum. It becomes a bit uncomfortable towards the end of the poor chapter but the director takes us right out of it into another theme.

Co- written by Saket Chaudhary and Zeenat Lakhani, the screenplay and comedy go hand-in-hand with great writing and amazing timing. This is the Director’s third feature after Pyaar ke Side Effects and Shaadi ke Side Effects which portrayed modern day relationships quite well and won the hearts of many. Hindi Medium is an entourage of multiple themes that seems seamless enough to go unnoticed.

The cast, Irrfan Khan, Saba Qamar, Deepak Dobriyal and also Amrita Singh do justice to their roles. Although Amrita Singh’s remains a little weak, mostly because of the bizarre situations and back stories that are built on her character, that seem very surreal for an average Indian viewer.

School admissions are always a top priority for any parent trying to enrol their kids into the best school. From making friends with the other parents in the queue to trying to find out all the DOs and DON’Ts in the school, the film takes on all the issues that will make you say “Oh, yes, I know how that feels!” The lead characters’ struggle to get their daughter admitted in the best school makes us believe in them and their battle to be sensible.